News Analysis: Racism in Japanese soccer ignites concerns ahead of 2020 Olympics
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E-mail Xinhua, March 14, 2014
The J-League has handed down its harshest punishment in the football league's 20-year history following one of the nation's biggest clubs' fans being accused of racist behavior in a saga that has blighted the professional game here as Tokyo gears up to host the 2020 Olympics.
Urawa Reds Diamonds, following its fans displaying a racist banner at a home game in Saitama against Sagan Tosu FC on March 8, has been ordered by the J-League to play a home game without spectators on March 23 against Shimizu S-Pulse.
The move by the league marks the first time in its history the J-League has ordered a club to play a game without spectators and the league has also insisted the club write a written apology to account for its fans displaying a banner bearing the words, written in English, "Japanese Only."
The large, clearly visible discriminatory banner was hoisted before the game in front of one of the entrances for the Urawa supporters inside the Saitama Stadium, and was not removed until after the game, despite a security company and other officials alerting the club about the banner and racist slurs being made by some of the Urawa fans.
Speculation among the footballing community is rife that the banner may have been targeting Tadanari Lee, a South Korean-born national with Japanese citizenship, who was signed for the Reds from the English Premier League's Southampton FC at the beginning of the season.
Sagan's manager and coach are both South Korean, as are several of its players, which may also have factored into the Reds' fans hanging the banner and being heard by security officials as making racist jibes during the match, leaving some observers concerned about racism ahead of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
"The majority of teams in the J-League have a number of foreign players on their squads, which is great, as the league continues to evolve along the same path as some of the greatest leagues in the world, such as the UK's Premier League or Italy's Serie A," Sid Lloyd, managing director of Footy Japan, the largest joint operator of amateur international adult football leagues and children's football academies in Japan, told Xinhua.
"Last weekend Urawa didn't field any non-Japanese players, but the team is coached by Mihailo Petrovic, who is Serbian. I'm not sure if the Reds' fans in question are anti-Korean, completely racist, or just utterly stupid," said Lloyd, also a qualified coach with the English Football Association.
Lloyd went on to say that regardless of the fan's intentions, their actions speak volumes and could be perceived globally in the worst possible way, particularly in light of the right-leaning nature of politics in Japan at the moment.
"The news about 'racist fans in Japan' is all over the press and social media and is sparking a few concerns about the (Tokyo) Olympics. We are all aware of how passionate Japanese fans can get when it comes to international competitions, but when the term ' racism' gets banded about it casts a pretty dark shadow for the country in question and begs people to ask broader questions about a country's underlying nationalism and suchlike," said Lloyd.
Following Thursday's decision, the team announced it will prohibit supporters from displaying signs and banners of any kind at all home games and officials from Urawa confirmed that a number of individuals were being questioned over the banner.
The racist banner also displayed an image of the Japanese flag, but while the club conceded the actions of its fans were discriminatory, it has yet to comment on whether the banner was aimed at Lee and members of the opposing team, management and coaching staff personally.
Mitsuru Murai, chairman of the J-League, however, said the incident had severely tainted the image of the league and the broader soccer community in Japan.
Murai, in handing down the punishment Thursday, said the league took particular exception to the club not removing the banner as soon as it was alerted to its presence.
The J-League chief said that Urawa Reds had confirmed that the supporter group who displayed the banner would be indefinitely suspended from the club's activities and added that Reds' fans will no longer be able to have their banners displayed at any of their games, either at home or away.
Murai added that while there were various ways of determining what constitutes discrimination, the important point is perception and how the victim(s) view the act, and, as such, the Reds fans' behavior was in fact discriminatory.
Murai went on to say that these racist acts have had a huge social impact both in Japan and abroad and have severely damaged the image and brand of the league and of Japanese football in general.
Japan's government even weighed in on the issue, with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga praising the J-League for condemning the Reds for not removing the racist banner at the earliest opportunity.
For Urawa, who joined the league since its inception and are reigning Asian Champions League winners, it is not the first time they've found themselves in hot water over racism.
During a May 2010 game at Miyagi Stadium in Sendai, Urawa supporters made racist taunts to foreign Vegalta Sendai players, with the club being punished 50,000 U.S. dollars over the incident.
Urawa Reds have had repeated trouble with their supporters in the past involving racism and the club has previously been sanctioned for racist behavior by their fans, said Murai, adding that while the latest act may only have involved a minority of supporters, a team with the gravitas of Urawa should never let incidents like these occur.
Shimizu's Iranian-American coach Afshin Ghotbi, who was also the victim of racism three years ago when his then team Shizuoka played Jubilo Iwata, said that the recent Urawa incident was a " lose-lose" for Japanese football. Endi
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